blah blah finances blah blah

[rmd]

so, i've been pondering my finances lately.

as usual, i'm thinking that i should be saving more money. then again, i suspect that if i could retire this moment i'd still be thinking "man, i should be saving more money. what if..."

i'm thinking about talking to some kind of financial planning type, but haven't done anything about it yet.


[Poll #743154]

if you're local to me and have a financial planner you like, feel free to share the name. i have an irrational aversion to most "hey, talk to our financial planners" offers from amex et al since i pessimistically assume they're going to act in a way that maximizes their happiness in terms of "meeting boiler room quotas" and less to maximize my happiness in terms of "making me a lot of money".



thanks!

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

one rough rule i've heard is that [(number of years till retirement) * 2] is the rough percentage of retirement investments that should be in higher risk investments.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

oh, and I misspoke--my 401(k) contributions are actually 9% (6% plus the match), I think. 10% is the ESPP amount, which with recent and likely upcoming stock performance for the Company is increasingly becoming a wash. The losses over the holding period has recently been almost enough to wipe out the 15% discount, and the income tax vs. capital gains benefit requires an additional 18-month hold that is largely eaten up by losses. It's still a net gain, but not much of one, and return on other investments is probably better. I guess I could up the 401(k) contributions to the maximum, even though none of the additional contributions would be matched.

This whole subject makes me depressed, which is why I don't think about it much. Yeah, I know, bad investment strategy.